Do you need an energizing, inspirational break from your everyday writing routine? On Sunday, March 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., join CWC member and co-founder of the Birth Your Truest Story Community Audrey Kalman for Riversong Retreat: Find Your Creative Flow, where you’ll write, share, contemplate, and take inspiration from the Petaluma River. Find out more and register at Riversong Retreat: Birth Your Truest Story.

Colleen Olle’s picture book Sophia and Sinclair Get Lost! was designated as a Finalist in the 2025 Feathered Quill Book Awards’ Children’s Picture Book category. In addition, her picture book won Silver in the Animal—Children’s & YA category.

In April, Bruce Neuburger will be joining co-authors Bernward Dörner and Max Strand on a book tour for Benno Neuburger published by Hentrich & Hentrich. Interest in the book about an anti-Nazi resister is being stoked by the rise of the right wing in German politics. He will also talk with German high school students in Munich and Laupheim about his previous book, Postcards to Hitler: A German Jew’s Defiance in a Time of Terror.

Follow Carol Park’s journey through images and poetry, illuminating her transformation from stuck and hiding toward agency and from whiteness to intercultural, artistic self. Her “Journey into Self and Writing” will include practical tips on writerly growth and publication. Dates for the events can be found at carolpark.us.

Kelsay Books, the publisher of Marianne Brems’s most recent poetry collection, has nominated Stepping Stones for the Eric Hoffer Book Award 2025 for the Small, Academic, and Independent Press categories.

James Hanna’s story “Lola Has Answered You” appears in Apocalypse Confidential, a new online journal that favors edginess. While his irreverent “Orville Baumgardner and Words to Live By” is featured in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, “The Land Fish” has been reprinted in Bewildering Stories. In this story, struggling writer Mason Trout pens a maudlin book to mock a critic. To his horror, the book becomes a bestseller.

At the October 2024 Writers Helping Writers, poet Kate Adams built a quatrain and had writers start with lines to create blank verse. What type of verse will she have us play with this month? On March 13, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. visit the San Mateo Public Library to receive poetic energy and play with poetry.

How do you start your research process? What is disambiguation and how to accomplish it? How can we safely use AI sites? Come to Writers Helping Writers at Rinconada Library in Palo Alto on Thursday, March 20, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Geri Spieler will discuss online search methods, which include several methodologies to equip you with the skills and tools you need to find accurate and reliable information. 

On Thursday, February 13, at 6:00 p.m., at the Delancey Street Screening Room in San Francisco, join new CWC member Ashia Solei for an inspiring screening of Underdogs. This documentary, airing nationally on PBS and the WORLD Channel, follows homeless dogs transformed into adoptable animals through the training efforts of prisoners and highlights the power of clear, kind, and consistent communication and second chances. Director Ashia will be joined by Emmy-winning broadcaster and former Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres. Find more details at Underdogs Documentary.

The latest issue of Spirited Voices: A Writing Journey into the Deep Imagination features impressive work by CWC members Megan E. McDonald, Margaret Nalbach, Drew Oman, and Donna Wocher, with art direction by Doug Baird. Darlene Frank is the editor and publisher of this digital magazine. This is issue #10. Enjoy!

James Hanna’s essay, “Orville Baumgardner and Carrion Crows 2,” appears in A Thin Slice of Anxiety. This piece addresses the Supreme Court’s “presidential immunity” decision.

Independent Press Awards has given Hanna’s novella, Lights Out Lizzie, a Distinguished Favorite Award.

Join developmental editor Eva Barrows and copy editor Lila LaBine on February 12 at 11 a.m. for a free one-hour Zoom discussion on when to show, when not tell, and when to listen to your authorial gut feeling as you write. Register for this Ask an Editor workshop at https://www.evabarrows.com/workshops

How do you start your research process? What are the surface, deep, and dark webs? How can we ethically use people’s searches for our purposes? Come to Writers Helping Writers at San Mateo Public Library on Thursday, February 13, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Geri Spieler will discuss online search methods, which include several methodologies to equip you with the skills and tools you need to find accurate and reliable information.

Do you need to cut 500 words from your story? Or did you neglect to mention, after one page of description, that your story takes place in the suburbs? On Thursday, February 20, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at the Rinconada Library, join Lisa Meltzer Penn in a hands-on Writers Helping Writers session and learn how to “push” back what you don’t need and “pull” forward what you do.

To protect their intellectual property rights, authors need to understand the essentials of publishing contracts, from grants of rights to termination clauses and severability. That knowledge gives individuals the confidence to evaluate, negotiate, and succeed in forming mutually beneficial agreements. Come to our branch meeting on Saturday, January 18, from 10:00 a.m. to noon to hear Vanessa MacLaren-Wray discuss publishing agreements, basic contract terms, and other contract issues.

When writing a story or article, do you ever pause and look at a word, wondering if you have used it correctly? For instance, do you know the difference between the meanings of “homed” and “honed?” On Thursday, January 9, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the San Mateo Public Library, Claudia Hyslop will talk about common grammar errors and how to avoid them.

Conventional wisdom and recent guidance in traditional publishing hold that, in the process of seeking representation for your work, you should expect to send at least one hundred query letters.

But where in the world do you find a hundred or more agents to query? Join writer Megan E. McDonald on Thursday, January 16, 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at the Rinconada Library, as she demystifies the process of compiling a comprehensive agent target list.